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Baby P/Panorama

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Members: 17
Latest Activity: Jun. 22, 2009

A Turnell's response

video of A Turnell's response

Taken from panorama's website:

Turnell told Panorama that danger to a child must constantly be at the forefront of professional work and in Haringey he saw little evidence that was happening.
"Solution focus gives you a lot of good skills, it gives you ways of engaging with families," he told the programme. "But you must bring to the table very clearly what the problem is and you must talk very clearly with the family about the past, about harm to the child, the neglect, the maltreatment. And if you try and use solution focus without doing that, if you try and use it as a therapy, as a therapist would use it in the therapy room, it can very quickly become dangerous - particularly in high risk cases."
"If you are talking about the future without reference to the past, that's when it can get very dangerous in child protection work," said Turnell, who lectures around the world his Signs of Safety methods.

Discussion Forum

new draft from Rayya 11 Replies

Started by Rayya. Last reply by Paul Avard May. 10, 2009.

draft from Rayya 17 Replies

Started by Rayya. Last reply by Rayya May. 7, 2009.

from UKASFP mailing list 4 Replies

Started by Rayya. Last reply by Rayya May. 6, 2009.

Comment Wall

Comment

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Comment by Rayya on May 11, 2009 at 5:43pm: A nasty article in the Spectator:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3592051/solution-focused-therapy-is-only-the-worst-of-the-delusions-in-the-baby-p-case.thtml

and a response from 'R.G.'

this group has already come in useful.

Comment by Rayya on May 7, 2009 at 8:33am: In case people hadn't noticed I've posted a new draft above in which I have tried to draw together all the different comments made by people in response to the original. I have attempted to 'appreciate', refrain from criticising anyone, clarify SF (people may disagree with the distinctions I've made but I think in this circumstance it may be useful) and promote Signs of Safety. the only thing that is missing is research but we could just put in a comment that there is a growing evidence base and post a link to the research list.

As before - please feel free to criticise, I have no personal investment in what I have written other than to be helpful.

Comment by Steve Freeman on May 6, 2009 at 9:33pm: There seem to be couple of positive aspects to the fall out from Panorama;
SFBT is in the news, the responses have galvanised people to take action and demonstarate a bit of member power, the commitee is being supported in their attempts to respond to the benefit of the approach and people involved with it.
Looks like a dramatically improving state of affairs to me,

Steve

Comment by Carole Waskett on May 6, 2009 at 5:35pm: I'd like to lurk and read and understand this complex situation. Hope that's OK
Warm wishes,
Carole

Comment by Chris Iveson on May 6, 2009 at 4:09pm: Carl
No need!
It is this sort of dialogue that helps us all find our way!
Chris
But thanks, too!

Comment by Carl Plant on May 6, 2009 at 2:52pm: Chris I do apologise deeply for the two misleading threads, I should have stated that my understanding of the programmes view was...

The discussions today have helped me steadily to get a clearer picture of events and I hope the discussions will help others to. It's possible that my own misunderstanding could be due to the misrepresentation and innuendo you mention. Again please accept my apologies.

Comment by Chris Iveson on May 6, 2009 at 2:46pm: Unfortunately, Andrew's general comments have been used to imply that this was what Haringey social workers were doing (we don't actually know this) and it is in danger of being used to disparage solution focused practitioners as irresponsible Pollyannas!

Comment by Chris Iveson on May 6, 2009 at 2:43pm: Carl
I think there are a couple of misleading threads in your comments.
Peter's mother was not receiving therapy; she agreed to a single session for a purpose to do with Sue Gilmour's needs more than her own (though I imagine she and everyone else thought she might gain some benefit, too) But it was a one-off session and not a therapy contract. Neither was it in isolation: it was with the consent of the team concerned and the session was documented on the record so was not conducted 'independantly'. There is no issue about this other than one created by misrepresentation and innuendo. The issue was the lack of information about the tape and possibly the failure to recognise at that time the significance of the mentioning of a 'boyfriend'.

Your definition of solution focused brief therapy as the approach chosen by the team is also misleading. We do not know what approach was taken by the team. We know that some team members will have undertaken an introductory course in sfbt and sos but the idea that this was what the team were 'doing' is created by innuendo. Haringey are looking at what was going on at the time, saw this training, jumped to the wrong conclusions about it and understandably use it to spread the blame.

I think Eileen and others have said it loudly and clearly: solution focused practice is good for child protection, it helps identify whether there is sufficient safety and sufficient resource to enable families to stay together and like any other therapeutic approach used in statutory work of all types it is used to compliment and enhance the performance of the statutory job, not replace it.

Signs of safety is one way to codify and systematise the application of solution focused principles in child protection work. It does not in itself teach the interviewing skills that are needed to back it up: these are solution focused skills.

Finally, one of the requirements of diploma students who present work in which there is a statutory component, is that the statutory role (children, adults, education etc) is demonstably performed alongside the solution focused interviewing.

Chris

Comment by Paul Z Jackson on May 6, 2009 at 2:42pm: So... no-one actually knows whether there was any SF used by the child protection worker. (If it was used, it was not used well. Panorama insinuates it was used, but to my recall does not state it explicitly. It's the supposedly-shocking but actually irrelevant video by Sue G that drags SF into the TV prog and prompts the various insinuations.) Given that - which is ambiguous at best - I'll re-write the first 3 paras again.

Comment by Rayya on May 6, 2009 at 2:41pm: I cannot contribute any more today until aroud 7 pm as I have to go and do a presetnation. please feel free to use what I've written as you all see fit.

Good luck